A PhD is not required to do research, nor does research necessarily lead to a PhD. A PhD is ultimately like any other degree: a school programme where, at the end, some instituting is staking part of its reputation on giving the world a promise that you have some minimum competence in some field. Anything you learn in school, you can in principle learn on your own. (I have a PhD myself and I encourage everyone who has the opportunity to undergo formal schooling, but I'm well aware that not everybody wants to.)
There is one part of the article that is a bit confusing:
> I was also told by one professor that it’d be “expected” for me to join faculty full-time after getting a PhD, which made me uncomfortable, because I knew I didn’t want to work in academia long-term.
Maybe some context is missing, but I'm a bit incredulous that anyone would believe this statement. A professor may train dozens of PhDs over his career, and if all were expected to join faculty, then the resulting exponential growth would cause the working population to be pretty much entirely university faculty.
There is one part of the article that is a bit confusing:
> I was also told by one professor that it’d be “expected” for me to join faculty full-time after getting a PhD, which made me uncomfortable, because I knew I didn’t want to work in academia long-term.
Maybe some context is missing, but I'm a bit incredulous that anyone would believe this statement. A professor may train dozens of PhDs over his career, and if all were expected to join faculty, then the resulting exponential growth would cause the working population to be pretty much entirely university faculty.